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Identifying lilacs?

This is soooo trivial, but I thought I'd ask....is there any way to identify the colour of a lilac before it has reached the flowering stage? I have two in containers that I salvaged from my aunt's home before her kids sold it - one I dug from a white lilac, the other from a lavender. I really want the lavender one to go by the front corner of my house - but I don't remember which danged pot it got put into!
Any suggestions?
Dee

You can't tell until the buds are well formed. The white will be creamy white at the very tip and the coloured ones will show a small hint of colour, but otherwise, no, you cannot tell.

How big is the pot? If fairly large, let them bloom in the pot then plant them. Just make sure you water and feed them until you plant - they use up a lot of water when they begin to flower and do need some feeding -we used to use Miracle-Grow once a week in the tree nursery,

Just looked at my bushes....the one that will bloom white has clear green veins in leaves while the dark purple one has faintly reddish tone in some of the leaf veins...otherwise only the buds give a clue (buds on white one have no reddish or darker tone while the ones on the purple one do....neither is budded up much yet...leaves just came out about a week ago...still frosting at night).